Information & Ethics Committee on Feb. 22nd, 2021

[Lloyd Richardson]

I would quickly say that it is a very dynamic issue. It's not necessarily one thing. There are examples of countries in the world that prohibit most children and adult content altogether. That would be one—

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Brenda Shanahan]

Could I stop you there, Mr. Richardson.

Are we having trouble with interpretation?

[Greg Fergus, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

Until Mr. Richardson solves his problem, I could turn to Mr. Clark.

Mr. Clark, you have the floor.

[John F. Clark]

We send our CyberTipline reports to well over 100 countries around the globe. The ones that seem to work best are the ones that have a strong law enforcement involvement, judicial process, laws in place—

[Greg Fergus, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

Which ones would they be? Very quickly, so we can get this on the record, sir.

[John F. Clark]

We're talking primarily about the Five Eyes as good examples of strong laws—not perfect, but very good laws.

[Greg Fergus, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

Is that also on the enforcement side?

[John F. Clark]

On the enforcement side, I would say that's true as well. We send our CyberTipline reports to law enforcement organizations in those countries.

[Greg Fergus, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

Thank you.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Brenda Shanahan]

Thank you very much, Mr. Fergus.

Ms. Gaudreau, you have the floor for two and a half minutes.

[Marie-Hélène Gaudreau, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

We've just learned—and we expected this—that fraudsters have gotten their hands on the personal data of three out of four Canadians.

I think it is urgent, obviously, to include control measures. Earlier, we were talking about the link with police forces. We were wondering how we can work more closely with them.

I realize that the work to be done in the field is colossal. It saddens me to see that not only are there millions of individuals whose privacy is completely ruined, but also that fraud exists in Quebec and in Canada.

Mr. Bernhard, am I wrong to say that there is a structure missing that would prevent some people from slipping through the cracks?

Do you agree that tightening up control regulations through the Ethics Commissioner, for example, is urgent and necessary, so that our regulation can one day align with a model like the one in Germany?

[Daniel Bernhard]

I think what you're pointing out is that Canada is so far behind on these issues of enforcing the law when it comes to anything that happens digitally.

You're right to connect the fraud, the child sexual abuse material, the privacy violations, all of this other illegal activity. It's the same question: Are we going to enforce the law when it happens digitally or not? I really hope that you will invite Commissioner Lucki.

I'll give you one last point here: the Christchurch shooting that happened in March 2019. I spoke with a fellow in Vancouver, Chris Trottier, who opened his phone and saw this recommended to him. He didn't ask to see it; it was pushed to him.

Is that a criminal offence? We need more case law, and to do that, we need more trials. I really wonder why the RCMP does not consider those types of actions to constitute “promotion”. It seems to constitute promotion to me.

[Marie-Hélène Gaudreau, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Mr. Richardson, we've lost control when it comes to privacy issues.

As an expert, do you agree that this problem needs to be addressed and that more protections need to be built into legislation?

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Brenda Shanahan]

Ms. Gaudreau, I'm sorry, but your time is up. Perhaps Mr. Richardson can answer the question later.

Mr. Angus, you have the floor for two and a half minutes.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Stepping back from this a bit—because for many of us this has been a pretty shocking study and many of us, I think, are feeling in our guts that something is fundamentally wrong—I want to just articulate that pornography is legal in Canada. Citizens have the right to watch weird things. People have the right to promote and show their consensual bedroom antics, if that's what they like to do. Whether people like it or not, that is their right.

The question is whether or not Pornhub-MindGeek has abused or failed to live up to their legal obligations. That, to me, is the fundamental question on non-consensual images, on issues of rape, on issues particularly of child abuse.

When I read Canada's legislation, going back to the 2011 mandatory reporting legislation, a provider is obligated to reach out to the police if there are issues raised, but also within Canada, the Canadian Centre for Child Protection.

I want to go back to the Canadian Centre for Child Protection for a second.

You said that they began reporting somewhere around December, somewhere around the time that the New York Times article blew the doors off everything. Is that correct?

[Lloyd Richardson]

Yes, I can follow up with the exact date for you. They reached out to us directly to see how they could report it to us. I could get that.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Would that mean that for basically 10 years of Canadian law, while we had very strong laws on the books, they were not reporting to you?

[Lloyd Richardson]

That's correct.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

That's correct.

Mr. Clark, they have different legal obligations in the United States, but they've reached out to you to be a partner. They're calling themselves a partner. They have voluntarily come forward on issues for which I think any good corporate citizen would say, “We don't want this on our site.” They told us they didn't want bad things on their site.

When did they reach out to you? Would you say it's been a matter of months?

[John F. Clark]

I believe it was in the latter part of 2020. Earlier I said it was more recent, but I think it was in the latter part of 2020.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Yes, it was in the latter part of 2020, when the New York Times broke the story, possibly.

[John F. Clark]

That was most likely when.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

It was most likely then.

[John F. Clark]

Yes, and—

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

We've had a number of survivors reach out to us from the United States, and for 10 years before that, they were not reaching out to you to let you become aware or to let you work with them on helping these survivors, these victims.